Chapter 26: Oops

Before bed, he practiced his mana control using some creative techniques. One involved using an enhanced [Firebolt] and trying to mold it into a different shape. At the moment he was trying to manipulate it into a thin string, but the skill was fighting him the entire time, constantly trying to revert back into a bolt. When he got tired of that he would play around with mana by making small human-like figures out of fire mana, reenacting a scene.

His current favorite was made up of a couple of dozen really small stick figures trying to take down a giant dragon. The people look more like matchsticks and the dragon looks more like a worm with a tumor on its head, but the intent is what matters, Julius thought. It was great practice for training his ability to individually control each construct. He had tried to do the exercise with compressed mana constructs, but halfway through the entire thing destabilized. If it wasn’t for his quick reaction, he would have created a large explosion. Safe to say, he didn’t try that again.

[Thermal Compression lvl 13 -> lvl 14]

“…”

Huh, interesting.

Once he started to feel tired he climbed his way up to his makeshift stone bed and passed out. He only required about an hour or two of sleep nowadays. So once he woke up, he began his day with some physical training without any kinetic energy. Kinetic energy amplified his fundamental capabilities, which would theoretically mean that if he increased his base he would be able to display more power. Furthermore, [Restoration] helped a lot with physical training. Whenever he would start to feel tired he would activate it and it would heal him back to his peak. It also had another benefit of hastening his muscle tissue regeneration.

At first, Julius noticed that the skill was just healing him back to his original state and that wasn’t good for muscle growth. His goal was to tear his muscles and cause muscle hypertrophy, but the skill wasn’t allowing that. He made some adjustments to how the skill healed him. It wasn’t easy, all modifications had to come after the skill had been activated and he had to make all alterations manually. But eventually, he was able to modify the skill to allow for muscle growth.

It allowed Julius to stress his muscles far beyond what was considered normal and healthy. But with [Restoration] he was able to push himself without worrying about lasting damage to his body.

He was currently doing squats with a massive slab of stone slung over his back. With every rep he was repairing his muscle tissue with life mana, enabling him to continue ripping them apart without stopping. His face was crimson red from the blood flooding his face due to the exertion. He had even popped several blood vessels in his eyes and cracked several teeth in his struggle.

After one last rep, he let the slab of rock slip off his back and he slumped to the ground in a lifeless heap, while healing his injuries. The physical fatigue and exhaustion weren’t much of a factor anymore due to [Restoration] but the mental fatigue was still there. Although the skill helped with lessening how much sleep he needed. The psychological trauma of struggling and enduring the pain still took its toll.

Still, he could already tell some of the changes in his physiology in half a day’s work. He already had signs of building muscle, as if he had been working out for a couple of weeks instead of a day. Imagine what bodybuilders from my world would do if they had this ability. Julius laughed at the idea. They probably wouldn’t ever stop working out.

[Restoration lvl 10 -> lvl 12]

[Kinetic Reinforcement lvl 10 -> lvl 11]

His efforts were rewarded in the form of two level-ups in [Restoration] and one in [Kinetic Reinforcement] to his surprise.

It was almost mid-afternoon at this point and Julius wanted to pick off another group by the end of the day. If he was feeling extra bold he would try for two groups. But it all depended on if he could isolate them. He didn’t want to be alerting the large group any more than he could help. It was still a possibility that they were already aware of something hunting them down.

He spent the next few hours practicing his [Firebolt]. It was the main skill he wanted to upgrade or get rid of. It was useful before, but now Julius felt restricted by it. It used too much mana and it was only useful after he compressed a load of fire and kinetic mana into it. The main benefits the skill provided right now were its casting speed and its ability to contain a lot of compressed mana. More than his other constructs, but even that was slowly becoming obsolete. He was able to compress more and more mana every day and the skill seemed to have a hard limit, while his other constructs didn’t.

In his upcoming fight with the trolls, he decided he was only going to use [Firebolt] in order to advance it. His spikes might have been the best way to go, but he needed to upgrade this skill as fast as he could.

Once it was around late afternoon Julius got up and headed toward the valley. It was a quick trip with his generous usage of his burst step and he could already feel the difference his stronger legs made on the skill. He could send even more mana into them before they became unstable. Once he got back to the ridge overlooking the encampment of trolls he just observed for a while.

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Based on what he saw, it didn’t seem like anything was different from yesterday. He didn’t see any trolls panicking or large parties being formed to hunt him down yet. So that was a good sign that they didn’t know about his actions yet or at least didn’t care about the other trolls going missing.